Strange Phenonmenon: Making Ignorance Chic

I love this opinion article in the NYT: Making Ignorance Chic, by Maureen Dowd.  It's so sad but true- and I fear that we as a country have fallen prey to "Sarah's America."  Our country was founded by thinkers, deep thinkers.  Once upon a time, it was, as Dowd points out, "it was cool to be smart."  The mind boggling trend the past decade has been to favor the "common sense" folks with "American" values over the "intellectual elites."  Here's what I wish I understood better: where did we depart from the marriage between intellectualism and common sense?  The two aren't mutually exclusive and I don't know where the idea of the intellectuals versus... the ??? came from. 

Kurt Vonnegut's Look at the Birdie, published posthumously, has a haunting short story called "The Petrified Ants" where some anthropologists are looking at an ant civilization that has been found petrified in stone.  They observe this progression of the ants from intellectuals to being taken over by violent brutes.  Sound familiar?  Good read.

In large part, this recent rash of racist "patriotism" and intellectual hatred has to be racially based.  Why else would there be this insinuation of suspicion... or blatant outcry against well-educated people (a.k.a. Barack Obama).  Let's face it: the Republicans (as in the vocal party, I won't speak for everyone obviously) hate the idea of a black man being president.  They hate the idea that our country has become so diverse.  And they have capitalized on that hatred by reigning in uneducated bigots to do the dirty work for them.  I recently heard Michelle Alexander speak on her new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.  Her premise is fascinating, and perhaps at first glance, a little strong.  But the more I think about it, the more I think this is true and that this permeates the climate in our country.  Without so many words, there is a rebellion going on- an attempt at regaining control and a perception that the majority has "lost control" of the country to the minorities. 

And what can we do about it?  Are the remaining sane people in the country too tired, too fed-up, too disdainful to stand up against this snowball of bigoted craziness?  We can't give in, we can't get disenchanted and stop being involved.  I am guilty of this- I change the channel because I can't stand the reality of this happening in the news, I ignore politics.  I'm going to stop doing that though, because we have to fight the erosion...